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arrived, but two on the far side of Mother have
quit scanning, which I find odd. One radar station happens to be only six light
minutes from us, twelve minutes radio round trip time. I sent it a call a couple
of minutes ago and we could get a reply within ten minutes or so, assuming it‘s
manned. I really want to know if they have tracks for anything sizeable along our
path. Jake has used our Laser Defense System quite a few times on pea-sized gravel.
There must be an enormous amount of debris orbiting even outside the planetary plane.
Worse than in the Prophet’s Robe.”
    “The Robe?”
Dillon questioned. “Interworld certainly spreads out their routes. When did you
serve there?”
    “No, no. Interworld doesn‘t go there, that’s on the other
side of the Hub area.” Mirikami explained. “I served inside that nebula courtesy
of the Navy, shortly after I graduated from Navy academy, well before I went to
the civil Space Academy. I was an ensign, and it was during the second Qaddafi Jihad,
over forty years ago.
    “The male fanatics and their self-styled Sultan had finally retreated
into the Robe with their harem slaves, thinking they had escaped Hub laws. They
were determined to restore an old defunct Earth culture, where each male virtually
owed multiple women. Naturally, the President sent in our only combat capable squadron,
which is where I was assigned. That was in Lady Morrisfem’s first term. That got
her reelected too. It was the first Navy combat in almost three hundred years.”
    He shifted subjects. “We should reach orbit around Newborn in
thirty-one hours, eighteen minutes, then allow about twenty minutes to match orbit
and dock with Midway. We’ll reach rollover in about seventeen hours.”
    “Rollover?”
asked Dillon.
    “Ship jargon.” Mirikami explained. “We rotate the ship for deceleration
at the halfway point. In this case, we are chasing Newborn, so we go a little past
halfway. Rotating is not strictly necessary, but it’s more energy efficient for
keeping our compensated internal gravity pointing in the right direction,
always toward our feet, as we accelerate or decelerate. All we need now is for
Midwife to answer us.”

4. Suspicion
     
    The last
seconds before anticipated reception of the beacon signal was counting down in a
corner of the forward view screen. The timer reached zero, then indicated negative
as it counted up again. There was no beacon signal.
    “Jake, have
you detected any communications of any type since re-entry?”
    “Yes Sir.
From the five long-range radars, and two of those are still sending, a third
one ended several minutes ago.”
    “Why didn’t you inform me another one had quit?”
    “Sir, you asked me to tell you if the beacon came on or of
other new transmissions. That was not a new transmission.”
    Mirikami
sighed. “But no other sort of new transmission Jake?”
    “No Sir. If you exclude the natural radio emissions from the
gas giants and the star, as I believe you intend. There are no new intelligent signals”
    They waited another ten minutes. There was no reply to the radio
calls to either Midwife or the nearest radar station.
    Mirikami issued new instructions to the computer. “Jake, advise
the Bridge of any change in the pattern of radar emissions, such as entering tracking
mode on us, and of any other artificial signals of any type.”
    “Yes Sir.”
    Switching off, Mirikami swiveled to face Dillon, a concerned
expression on his face. “Doctor, I don’t know what is going on in this system but
the silence is difficult to understand. There is too much redundancy to consider
a simple equipment failure. Something is wrong.”
    “I have to
agree, Captain. What do you intend to do now?”
    “Gather more information. First, how good is Midwife’s defense
against a comet or asteroid impact? They certainly would have the means to make
use of the data from the Bolide network, but lasers and plasma beams are barely
flyswatters for a large rock